Philippines Introduces World’s First Dengue Vaccine

The first public vaccine program for dengue fever is presented in the Philippines for millions of school children. It is the world's first authorized immunization against a mosquito-borne illness that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates infects 390 million individuals each year.

Many fourth-graders at a government funded school in metropolitan Manila's Marikina city were given the first of three shots of Dengvaxia according to Big Story. The Philippines had the most elevated dengue cases in the WHO's Western Pacific region from 2013 to 2015, enlisting 200,415 cases a year ago, based on the Department of Health records based on Science World Report.

Health Secretary Janette Garin entitled the program's introduction "a historic milestone" in public health. "We are the first country to introduce, adopt and implement the first-ever dengue vaccine through (the) public health system and under a public school setting," she added.

The government is burning through 3.5 billion pesos ($76 million) to oversee the free immunizations, which it purchased at a marked down cost of 3,000 pesos ($65) for three doses for every child. Free immunization programs guarantee that "health should be for all, rich or poor," Garin mentioned.

Dengvaxia, created by the French pharmaceutical organization Sanofi Pasteur, acquired its first permit in Mexico in December 2015 for use in people aged 9 to 45. Administrative offices in Brazil, the Philippines and El Salvador took after. The immunization is anticipating administrative reviews in Europe and many non-European nations according to CNN.

"A vaccine able to reduce six out of 10 cases, or more importantly to reduce by 80 percent the risk of hospitalization or 93 percent of the risk of dengue hemorrhagic fever, is a major breakthrough," Guillaume Leroy, Sanofi Pasteur's vice president for dengue vaccine, mentioned to The Associated Press, including that the immunization would be particularly vital in Asia and Latin America, where dengue occurrences are high.

Leroy included that while there are contrasts in the level of adequacy against the diverse dengue strains, the immunization "has shown efficacy against all the four serotypes, all the serotypes circulating in the world."